On our Ada Comstock Scholars Slack workspace, we have a channel dedicated to emotional support. There is, of course, a lot of meme-sharing (okay, I do a lot of meme-sharing), but periodically someone gets real. For those of us dwelling on the margins, the Smith bubble can be a challenging terrain to navigate. Recently, a new Ada brought up feeling isolated at Smith, asking if anyone else felt this way and, if so, how we deal with it.
People responded. As sad as it is that so many of us feel this way, it was comforting to know that, at least in this, I am not alone. While I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, a couple of the Adas in that thread have volunteered their comments here. So welcome, everyone, to another window into the Ada Comstock Scholar journey here at Smith.
There are a million reasons why an Ada might be completing their undergraduate degree as a non-traditional student. These reasons range from mundane to extreme. Some of us just weren’t ready for college at (in my case) 16. Some of us were busy thumbing it around the globe, living off the land or escaping sex trafficking and religious cults (true stories, not all mine). Many of us are first-generation students rewriting the paradigm about who has access to this kind of education (yes, first-gen trads, we see you). Some of us are barely older than most traditional students and some of us are much older, or we are single parents, queer and/or international students, identities that add extra dimensions to being a non-traditional student at Smith.
That said, imposter syndrome comes up frequently for many of us. Paige Passantino, an Ada who is currently studying abroad in Bath, UK, said that being in a different program with a wider variety of students has given her space to reflect on the “intense imposter syndrome” she often feels at Smith. Mind you, Paige is also an accomplished writer with great social skills, amazing style and, like most of us, a pre-Smith life story full of intriguing details, yet here we are.
We also talked about the discomfort of group projects, feeling like our project partners might be secretly unhappy about getting “stuck with the old one,” or how, at least in my case, I can grow 10 new gray hairs in five minutes just from listening to someone born in 2003 theorize about what the ’90s might have been like. (Hey first year in your Nirvana tee: “Smells Like Teen Spirit” came out my first year of college).
Some Adas who live off-campus have expressed how difficult it can be to feel like any part of a Smith community; getting to and from campus multiple times a day isn’t always an option, nor is hanging out in the library for hours between classes and events. It almost feels like the assumption is that older students don’t want to be part of a Smith community. The irony is that with all of Smith’s recent efforts at equity and inclusion, age is one marginalization that feels like it gets left out of discussions.
This sense of alienation from the Smith community is compounded when you have children. There are only 10 family housing apartments here on campus, and we (gratefully) get to live in them year-round until we’ve finished our time at Smith. But that also means that usually only a couple of them open up every year. If you don’t get one, and you don’t already live in the area, your only other option is to find a place off-campus. Have you checked out the housing market around here lately? While there have been some privileged Adas in the history of the program (such as Tammis Day AC ’05, whose foundation is the reason it’s now called the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center), that isn’t most of us these days. Yes, there’s some assistance, but rent and real estate prices are now absurd here, and it can take two or three months to find housing.
Oh, but guess what? Being a queer, single mom on campus can be pretty isolating, too. I can’t always head out to the queer bar on a Tuesday night, and even when I do, it’s a lot of recently-legal classmates and me, feeling like that one guy who dropped out of high school but still hangs around. I have to avoid dating sites, too, because—until I frantically swipe them out of my online reality—I see faces I recognize. Thankfully, none of my matches have walked in to teach any of my classes, but that could take a sharp left quickly and I’ve got enough awkwardness in my life for now, thanks (but also who the hell really has time for it anyway).
As much as I love my apartment here at Smith (which is sunny and cozy and has huge windows, an air conditioner and a dishwasher and is actually nicer than the house I moved out of), it’s a pretty heteronormative world in Conway House right now. I don’t know how it happened, but apparently I came all the way to Smith to live with a bunch of straight women and their husbands. Don’t get me wrong, though, please—my neighbors are all great people and for that I’m grateful—but let’s just say this is not exactly what I thought my Smith experience would be like. Many of my similarly-aged queer friends back home weren’t aware that Northampton had gone from lesbian utopia to Park Slope in the last 20 years. With not much else to go on except their gushing love for the mythical “lesbian capital of the United States and maybe the world,” I made the mistake of having high expectations. I fully take the blame for my own disappointment there, but needless to say, there’s been an adjustment period, and it’s lasted about two years so far.
In the meantime, I got an emotional support dog, picked up a really immersive pandemic hobby and got involved with the Jandon Center. Of course, the social isolation has made me crankier than usual (and like I said, I can’t speak for anyone else’s Ada experience except my own), but this loneliness and insecurity is just one small facet of my short time here at Smith. I’ve survived a lot worse, so on the bright side, getting to reinvent myself again at my age is pretty cool.
I’ve come to accept that I’m never fully going to “fit in” here at Smith, but let’s be honest, have I ever really fit in anywhere? I came in during a competitive year and standing out is the reason I was able to get in here in the first place. So, I will suck it up for now, but in the meantime, please say hi, and pardon my social ineptitude and the fact that I still call inanimate objects “dude.”
On that note, I’ll end with something artist Myrrh Brooks, a senior, off-campus Ada mom, said in our chat that really soothed a lot of our isolated souls and reminded us that we are small but mighty:
“It’s by not fitting in that we bring so much.”
So to my fellow Adas who feel isolated, I see you. Revel in your uniqueness, your outsiderness, your age, your motherhood, your secret appreciation for Garth Brooks… whatever it is that makes you feel different. Everyone here is intellectually intelligent, but those things that make you feel isolated? Those are your herbs and spices. Drop that flavor in everything.
